Can increasing a game's graphic settings cause your computer to crash?

Well, I've been having issues with CS source (for several months now). I try to play (on recommended settings) and the kill icons turn to yellow boxes, textures turn black. It gets the worst in office, with things going all black and shiny and walls disappearing and everything. After I quit out, when I close my laptop lid and open it, it goes blank and back over and over again for a minute or two.

A while back, I lowered my settings. It had fewer issues, none at all really.

And for the COD4 demo, I'd try to change the resolution above 640x480. It'd crash, saying something was wrong with Direct X.

So the question here is, can upping graphics settings cause your graphics/computer to mess up? I thought it would only slow down the computer.

 

Have you updated your drivers? Your X1600 should easily handle source and COD4 on low/med at native res.

 

Yeah, Omega 3.8.421.

And COD4 I fixed. Seems it likes to crash with XFire on. Runs 1440x900 at lower settings at 30-50FPS. Not bad. But I still can't figure out why CS crashes. I've asked them, their suggestions don't work.

And Direct X was updated too.